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You're actually exactly right about how to interpret the net present value. You're very slightly off about comparing professional earnings: that's also exponential, with little "steps" along the way to represent your earnings each year. That is, I'm also assuming that you invest the $45,000 you earn as a resident, etc. (If I didn't let you do that, the NPV would be much smaller than $1.12 million!) The point is that money is more valuable the earlier you earn it, because you can make interest off of it.
Medical school is traditionally safer, but I'm not convinced that that's true in the future. (And I think law is also probably pretty safe. Engineering is probably not.) Medicine is changing rapidly (my concentration is in health economics) and I believe the first squeeze is going to be physician compensation.
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